If there was ever any doubt that Wallice might not commit to the jester character adorning the album’s cover art, it was immediately eviscerated the moment she stepped onto the Voodoo Room’s stage for the opening night of her tour in a puffy black dress with baggy white sleeves, complete with clown makeup.
Wallice opened the night with “Curtain to Close,” the album’s closing song, before flipping into the high-energy “Clown Like Me,” inviting the audience to join her circus for the hour and a half she graced the stage.
Wallice broke into the indie bedroom-pop scene in 2020 with her debut single “Punching Bag,” a track imbued with palpable desperation and proclamations of her willingness to be a good-spirited punching bag if it keeps a detached lover around. The song caught the attention of the U.K.-based label, Dirty Hit, who quickly signed her. Since then, Wallice has released a slew of EPs and toured with labelmates beabadoobee and The 1975, honing her self-effacing, synth-pop style.
On her long-awaited debut album, “The Jester,” this artistic voice emerged more fleshed out than ever. Throughout the project, Wallice embodies the titular jester — a role that requires her to entertain while simultaneously burdened by a deep-seated desire to be taken seriously.
“The Opener,” the first track on the album, serves as the project’s thesis. In this nearly six-minute meditation on her experiences as an opening act, she recounts the beers spilled on her, being ignored by the crowd, and falling just shy of her dreams. It’s somewhat ironic, considering the audience practically never stopped cheering for her.
It’s one thing to get a crowd to cheer for your dedication to your craft — to take the stage dressed like a clown and receive whoops and hollers in response — but it’s another to have the audience join in on the foolish festivity. Wallice was not the only clown in the room. Several audience members adorned ruffles, clown hats, and even painted their faces completely white. Between songs, Wallice addressed the costumed crowd, teasing the ways she was outdone by the other clowns in the room.
I watched as the father standing next to me — sporting old Wallice merch — sang along to every word, placing one of his kids on his shoulders, swaying with his phone flashlight during every softer track.
In the song “Look At Me,” a song addressing Wallice’s attention-seeking and self-pitying tendencies, the backtrack whispers, “look at me, look at me.” When she performed it, Wallice stepped away from the mic and let the backtrack handle the whispers. Meanwhile, both the father beside me and the clown behind me shouted the ad-lib so loudly that the paintings on the walls nearly fell out of their frames. Wallice leaned into the crowd’s enthusiasm; for the rest of the backtrack whispers, she extended the mic out to the crowd to fill her space. I can only imagine how re-affirming that must have been: to sing about wanting to be noticed and to have the audience prove in real time that they see, hear, and love you.
Wallice’s performance was complete with several party tricks. She had her bandmate freshen up his middle school trumpet skills for “Flash In The Pan,” and Wallice pulled out what looked like a metal clarinet to play on “Heaven Has To Happen.” As wildly fun as these implements were, the performance of it all made it difficult to discern the true intentions of this jester character she has crafted so meticulously over the years. Does she love the practice of entertaining, of cracking quick-witted self-effacing jokes? Is it more important that the audience laughs with or at her?
I found my answer during her performance of “Deadbeat,” the emotional crux of the album wherein Wallice laments a figure who abandoned her. She belted, “Heavy is the crown that you wear so proud,” then cried out, “Wish you were proud of me.” Wallice refused to let the audience marinate in the sorrow for long, quickly cutting the heavy air with a quip — “What are we getting sad about?” — and pivoting into the next song.
To me, this act felt like a declaration of what the Jester represents for her: a character through which Wallice can speak noncommittally. Sure, she is dressed like one and performing like one, but she can wipe the makeup off and step off the stage. Embodying the jester is a cathartic act — a way of filling another vessel up with everything dramatic and vulnerable, all to be able to take a step back and laugh at its absurdity. For Wallice, the ability to laugh at herself seems essential to the performance of her art.
Wallice’s first stop on this headlining tour was abuzz with joy and humor, and I am positive that her infectious energy will continue throughout this run. If you get the chance to catch her on this tour — or any future show for that matter — you must be aware of one of her fundamental principles: She does not believe in encores. When she steps off the stage, she will not be returning because, while the show might temporarily integrate you into the circus, it certainly isn’t a lawless one. Wallice takes her craft seriously: This circus has rules, and the audience abides by these rules, even or especially when we are all dressed as clowns.